Designing with Color: Gatega Interiors’ Color Use Case Studies

Guest Post By Joanne Fitzgerald, Gatéga Interior Design, LLC

Embrace Colors That Make You Happy

The most important rule about color is to not to be afraid of it. Embrace colors that make you happy and don’t worry about what’s fashionable or the current color trend du jour. With a little research and some experimentation you can develop a color scheme that makes you happy, and beautifully compliments and enhances your home’s decor and features.

I’ve been very fortunate to work with clients who love color and trust in my ability to successfully incorporate the colors that make them happy into their home environment.  I’ve detailed how I’ve used color in several of my design projects, and I hope these color-filled images will inspire you to create the perfect color scheme for your home.

Friedman Design Project

For this project the clients, after many years of living with their hand-me-down furniture from their college days, were more than ready to upgrade and reinvent their family home to reflect their more sophisticated tastes and to stylishly exhibit their burgeoning art collection.

The warm lime walls and pale gold ceiling were a natural fit for this bedroom, and accessorizing with the hand blown glass table lamps, with their more saturated hues, made for a perfect color design compliment. Decorating their master bedroom was particularly fun due to the fantastic window treatment fabric I had found. Interestingly enough, despite a vivid, brilliant pink swirl, it was the husband who was thrilled with it and the wife who was skeptical. Only after assuring her that I would showcase the other colors – lime, yellow and orange – did she agree to give the bright pink patterned drapes a try. The finished room is now her favorite in the house.

Downstairs the color scheme is decidedly more serious. I confess, I am partial to red dining rooms due to the ability of that color to really create a “nest” feeling, and the color red is also know to compliment the food being served – two important elements I strive for in dining rooms. Essentially the colors are all the same – green, red and gold, just deeper, more saturated and moodier hues. The adjacent powder bath incorporates a fantastic, textured wall covering that beautifully compliments the copper/bronze glass wall tiles. This is an excellent example of how to get really saturated, jewel tones in a tiny space. Evidently the small space doesn’t suffer from the dark tones!

Kaplan/Bernstein Design Project

This design project was especially fun because this client collects vivid, colorful art, and she wanted a colorful, playful kitchen space that mirrored her art passion and one that would inspire her and her three young sons.

KITCHEN BEFORE

KITCHEN AFTER

This client’s kitchen is an enormous space that required manipulation to achieve a more intimate scale, thus the use of deep wood tones and rich, saturated color.The accent blue chosen for the exposed wall above the custom Mixed Up Mosaic tile is an intense, Mediterranean blue that the client had been partial to for as long as we’ve worked together.

The adjacent dining room incorporated a more brilliant hue of the blue in a luxurious velvet woven upholstery fabric. So as not to get too busy with color and pattern, the wall covering and custom Rug Company rug were chosen for their graphic, monochromatic patterns. The resulting effect is plenty of interest and texture without jarring, competing colors.

The parlor is a quiet, simple space directly adjacent to the front entry but in full view of both the dining room and kitchen/family room beyond. The open plan of the home required that all spaces were themes and variations of each other, so once again, a neutral, taupe wall was chosen with a terra cotta accent which is another color to which this client was partial and also the dominant color of the family room (not pictured here).

Kisling Design Project

Having just moved from a small, east coast townhouse to a much larger Texas duplex, this client was ready to jettison most of her heavy, traditional furniture in favor of a lighter, more contemporary and ethnic design scheme. In her first house we painted using aubergine, lavender and crimson, but because this new house had tall, cathedral ceilings and interesting architecture, rather than betray the architecture with distracting color, we decided to embrace the cool, white stone and walls and added depth with rich wood tones and small splashes of color. Keeping the walls a fresh white directed the focus to the dramatic architecture and the beautifully crafted furniture. Though this was a great departure color-wise for this young woman, it turned out that she liked this refreshing color approach.

Simons/Korn Design Project

This couple live in a lovely, modest home directly across the road from an urban situated National Park. They are active, outdoor enthusiasts and wanted a kitchen that brought the outdoors in. The original space was an ode to the 1980s, with a sheet vinyl floor and plastic laminate cabinets and counters, so the ensuing kitchen remodel and design transformation turned out to be dramatic.

KITCHEN BEFORE   KITCHEN AFTER

The scheme began with a fantastic piece of Blue Persa granite – a gorgeous stone, unusual with its dramatic veins of blue, creamy white and taupe. Coupled with a Mixed Up Mosaic custom glass wall tile, the scheme was complete. Using wide plank, fumed walnut floors and a bank of walnut pantry cabinets complimenting pale stone-painted cabinets created a feeling of warmth, water and sky.

In order to maintain the quiet sophistication of the small, narrow space, walls were painted to blend with the painted cabinets and a cathedral ceiling alcove was painted a pale, gray blue. The petit, adjacent dining room incorporates a significantly more saturated hue of the blue established in the kitchen, completing a graceful, serene suite.

About Joanne Fitzgerald

Joanne Fitzgerald, founder and owner of Gatega Interior Design, brings a lifetime understanding of art and design to each project so that color, light, texture, scale, and pattern all work in harmony with each other, ultimately creating spaces that are interesting, inviting and supremely comfortable. Her approach is not to brand each project with her signature style, but to create each space as a reflection of the client: their culture, their lifestyle.

Joanne has a diverse educational background, having begun by studying engineering and eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Her technical training, combined with extensive experience in and a deep appreciation of the decorative arts has enabled her to bring to each project a broad understanding of form and function. After working for several area architecture and interior architecture firms she started her own, award winning design business in 1996.

Chez Josephine Restaurant-Color & Decor Inspiration

Room Decor & Color Inspiration: Chez Josephine, New York City

Chez Josephine, located in New York City’s magnificent theater row, is renowned for its vibrant, warm and inviting atmosphere, lively music, and its delicious French bistro style cuisine. Its decor also captures the swinging, festive and jazzy mood of 1930s’ Paris. Decorated with rich reds, deep blues, golds, striking greens, exotic furniture pieces, mirrors and chandeliers that leave a memorable mark, and, of course, artwork and theater posters depicting the amazing, talented and inimitable, Josephine Baker –namesake of the restaurant created in her honor by her sons, Jean-Claude and Jarry Baker.

I was introduced to Chez Josephine by Jamie Goldberg of Gold Notes (fantastic kitchen design blog) last February. Jamie had coordinated a fabulous and fun evening at Chez Josephine’s for a group of us who where in New York City to attend the Brizo sponsored Jason Wu Fall 2010 fashion show. I was so smitten with Chez Josephine’s cuisine, which is absolutely delish, the joyous atmosphere and by the restaurant’s decor that when I had a chance to return to New York city in May for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair I made a point to add dinner with my husband at Chez Josephine to my agenda.

There are three breathtakingly detailed painted exotic wood doors in the upstairs dining room that give the room the feeling that we are thousands of miles away from New York City – having dinner in some faraway exotic and fabulous locale. The velvet wall coverings in rich red and opulent blue give the room and extraordinary depth and warmth.

This detailed view of the doors shows off the colors that are part of the dining rooms color scheme: gold, red, green and blue.

Chez Josephine’s upstairs dining room with view of blue velvet wall covering.

Detailed view of blue velvet with gold patterned wall covering and deco style light sconces.

Another beautifully patterned painted wood door.Arched wood door painted in golden tones.

View of downstairs dining room. Love that chandelier! And live music is always on the menu at Chez Josephine. Music is one of the five design elements for creating the perfect sensory experience at home.

Striking artwork depicting Josephine Baker, in jewel tone greens, fiery reds, pinks, yellows, and blues set against a deep, ruby red velvet wall covering for high contrast and dramatic effect in the downstairs dining room.

Detailed view of the stunning chandelier. Here the red in the chandelier contrasts nicely with the blue ceiling tins.

If in New York City, make a date to visit Chez Josephine for a memorable dinner.

Jacaranda Tree Color Scheme

{ Series: Inspired by Nature }

This beautiful photo of the Jacaranda tree was submitted by Florida-based kitchen and bath designer and the editor of “Kitchen and Residential Design” blog, Paul Anater.  Paul writes:

St. Pete is filled with them and they bloom in March. It’s usually too cold for them in Tampa though there are a few stragglers. It’s always just a few degrees warmer on this side of the Bay and they really thrive. The older neighborhoods in St. Pete are jaw dropping when these things are in bloom.

The Jacaranda tree blooms are indeed beautiful and I find that you can’t go wrong selecting a color scheme for decorating your home – if you look to nature for color inspiration. Though I am using Pantone based colors here, you can go to any paint store, show them a photo of your nature inspired color palette, and they should easily be able to create your dream color scheme in an instant.

Resource: Pantone

RELATED

• Orchid Tree Color Scheme 
• Kitchen Designer Paul Anater’s profile on Spotlight on Design
• Design & Colors Inspired by Nature

Orchid Tree Color Scheme

{ Series: Inspired by Nature }

Purple Orchid Tree flowers in beautiful shades of purple set against vibrant green leaves create a striking and memorable color palette that you can translate to the home.

Paint Resource:  Pantone Paints & Interiors